


risk aware

by mimsical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: BDSM, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Queer Themes, Risk Aware Consensual Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 23:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18537676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimsical/pseuds/mimsical
Summary: The world is small and secluded from inside your hammock: the two of you, wrapped up safe from the rest of the world, warm sun overhead but hidden from you, with only the unsafeties of yourselves to intrude.





	risk aware

**Author's Note:**

> this is an old one i've had hanging around in my files since... uh, june of 2017, apparently. i figured i should probably get around to finally posting it, you know? 
> 
> a note: this ficlet touches on consent, particularly as pertaining to BDSM. there are brief references to sexual assault, accordingly. i prefer the RACK system when it comes to kink -- meaning Risk Aware Consenual Kink -- and that is the basis of this fic: acknowledging the risks and potential tripwires, and then proceeding accordingly. 
> 
> a final note: if you would like to consider this fic a sequel to my fic _these hollow hills,_ please feel free to do so. it is very much its spiritual successor in many ways.

“The worry that keeps tugging at the fussy bits of my noggin,” Jake starts, in the casual way he begins most of his very important pronouncements, “is that someday I’ll want something you don’t, or there’ll be something you’re indifferent to, or you’ll feel like you’d rather stop, and you won’t tell me. That you’ll choose to please me over your own comfort.”

You open your eyes from where you’d been considering the beginning of dozing off. The world is small and secluded from inside your hammock: the two of you, wrapped up safe from the rest of the world, warm sun overhead but hidden from you, with only the unsafeties of yourselves to intrude. The dangers of yourselves, really. There is no safe ground in the grey areas of consent, not for Jake. You've quietly known this for some time now.

“I’ll try not to do that,” you say.

“So it is a possibility,” Jake says, half to himself. His fingers tighten, momentarily, on your bicep.

 _I never promised I would always be good,_ you think. In fact you are often convinced of the opposite.

You wait.

“You understand that I need to know you can say no to me,” Jake says at last. His voice is tight. Not pained, but you feel the pain he carries below it. “Especially with this. Especially where it matters. I couldn’t bear it if I did something you didn’t want, or only tolerated, unknowingly. It would—”

He breaks off. Jake hates these kinds of conversations. He’s probably been thinking this for a while, if he’s actually saying it.

You can guess the end of the sentence, though. It would be a violation of Jake’s trust, to do to yourself what was once threatened to him. To give Jake’s desires entire weight and put yours aside in favor of fulfilling him, to what at least to his perception would be your detriment — yes, that would be a betrayal.

“I understand,” you say only, still considering. Jake doesn’t need to explain further. You’re not ever really comfortable with assuming you know what he means. It’s your trait that gets him most, your urge to analyze and pick things apart and know every detail so you can be absolutely certain — but there’s little ambiguity in Jake needing to know you can tell him to stop, that having a safeword isn’t just a silly formality that will never come up again, not when he’s shaken awake from so many nightmares at your side.

Jake sighs and settles back into your side, some tension draining away. “Good,” he says, and nuzzles closer, if possible, into your side. 

“Want to swim later?” you ask absently, mind still churning.

“I’d love to,” Jake says, voice low, and you set aside your thoughts to reconsider the possibility of a nap now. Jake is too warm and relaxing for your own good in any situation. You’ll never not be alert for danger, maybe, but he gets you close, sometimes. You shut your eyes and listen to the wind and feel the creak of the hammock in response and just drift.

* * *

You think of this conversation in flashes over the following weeks.

On your knees with your mouth stretched and your throat aching, your ability to safeword out nonverbally comes to your mind, despite your whole self urging you on, urging your jaw more lax and your throat more open.

With your shoulders pulled into an awkward position, trapping you, but with a fledgling pain that threatens to cross the threshold from intentional pain to intolerable discomfort. For that one, Jake noticed and adjusted the strain before your dazed mind could formulate what you might say.

While staring in the mirror, counting bruises, an old conversation about others’ perceptions of your relationship returning to you. The previous conclusion was that you liked the hickeys, liked being marked and possessed and cared for, and disliked teasing. You still dislike the teasing, not enough to want a change but enough to bring your discomfort back to your mind.

Spread out on your stomach with your arms and legs bound, the first warning flick of a riding crop against your ass. A more dangerous one, for you. You think you would stop, before you let Jake hurt you when you want to be hurt, when you think you deserve to be hurt, an apology for your existence. You know better than to think your relationship would survive you using Jake to punish yourself. And Jake would never deserve you treating him like that. No, you think you’ll be safe from this, so long as you continue to fight yourself into talking to Jake, telling him when you’re— “You’re not paying attention,” Jake says from behind you, hidden from your sightlines, forcing you to strain to track him when he holds still. The next strike from the crop is not gentle. He hits you until you cry, until you struggle in the restraints and go lax into them in turn, until you gasp _I can’t I can’t please I can’t_ and he pushes further anyway, until you fall into trusting his instincts more than you listen to your body’s shockwaves. He’s sweet and gentle, after, kissing your tears and not laughing when you have to blow your nose. 

And Jake knows, too, that he can’t pull away afterward. He knows that when you’ve gone away to float, when lose yourself to him so completely that the world outside of the two of you ceases to exist, you need him there beside you. If he leaves then, even for a few minutes, you’ll be scared in a way you can’t help. You’ll be adrift, unmoored. Jake seems to know, intuitively, how vulnerable he can make you, and he's never made you have to ask him to stay.

You don’t think there’s a danger, either, that Jake would mute your senses and leave you to fester in your mind. You’ve reached for him or called out in sudden fear enough times, unable to be certain he was still there. He knows you and your flaws better than that. That’s not a risk you think he would push.

Jake doesn’t try to push you to need to say no, either. You knew he wouldn’t. Jake has never been a person to really wish harm on somebody, and it would most likely hurt you to push you to the point where you’d need to say no. It would be its own form of betrayal. A smaller one, maybe. A test to your trust in him.

* * *

In the end, the first time you intentionally refuse him, it’s simple. You’re busy, typing rapidly with the beginnings of an idea scattered across the table around you. Jake presses a kiss to your neck and asks what you’re working on. It’s easy for you to be distracted by him. Jake is wonderful and sexy and it’s very easy to remind yourself of that and let him pull you away until he’s all you think.

“Just a project,” you say, and when Jake kisses your jaw you nudge him. “Hey, I’m working, here.”

“Aren’t I more interesting?” he tries, and there’s nothing fair-minded about the vibration of his chest and throat when he speaks this close to your body. You would go so far as to call it unsportsmanlike.

“I’ll take a raincheck on you being more interesting,” you say instead, dry but gentle. “Later, okay? I’m busy now.”

“Fair's fair,” Jake says, and drifts away. You’re not sure that he registered it as you saying no, but you did, and you’re counting it. You’ll point it out sometime, if you have to. For now, you file it away, and continue to concentrate.

**Author's Note:**

> note: i have comment moderation on just because i'm writing about consent themes and kink after sexual trauma. your comment will be approved unless you're being a total shithead, lol, and i assume the vast majority of you are not.


End file.
